Labels!!!!!!

In this day and age I think our society needs to label things. We have some weird undying urge to be able to put everything into a category, why? I don’t know! Opera, rock opera, musical, musical drama, operetta, when you get right down to it, what are the rules to go by when defining any of these art forms? Do you go by musical style, vocal style, if there is spoken dialogue, if everything is sung, if it’s in a foreign language, if it’s boring, exciting etc… The list could go on and on.

Personally, I am inclined to look at the vocal and musical style in which a piece was written and is to be performed. If there is belting involved, I would put it in a musical category, classical singing, it would remain in the opera category until further notice, I would need to examine it more to see if there is spoken dialogue and dance numbers which resemble that which are typical in musicals. (This just sounds so ridiculous!) There is just so much over lap in terms of what defines a work of art. If I was really unsure, like in the case of American Idiot, I would examine the intentions of the composer. I would absolutely not call American Idiot an opera, I would call it a musical, but it was written to be a rock opera.

What is a rock opera? My best guess is a work composed in a musical theater style both instrumentally and vocally, but without any spoken dialogue. It has pieces of both the musical and operatic worlds combined into one. Even now I’m having trouble really being able to set clear boundaries for defining an opera, musical, rock opera, etc… I suppose at a certain point you just have to suck it up and let it go. Call it whatever you want, a pencil is still a pencil even if I call it a cat, the end result will remain the same.